We taxied to our hotel in the early evening, noting that the taxis here are not taxicabs, but just regular cars with a taxi light on the roof - like a pizza delivery car - and learned some new traffic laws along the way: a blinking green light means it is okay to turn left in front of traffic. Glad clueless me did not rent a car here. I had an easy mnemonic for a street near our hotel called "Rue de la Montagne". Beg, borrow, or steal anyone? We checked in our 9th floor room (lady at front desk had never heard of Fogo Island) and wandered along St. Catherine street, having dinner at a yummy sidewalk cafe. I was impressed how well my parents were interpreting the French menu until I realized they had gotten an English version. The waiter had never heard of an Arnold Palmer, so I ordered iced tea instead and it arrived sweet! For dinner, we ordered a salad called "Red, White, and Blue" (appropriate, it being July 4th) and "bacon-wrapped barbecue shrimp." Can't go wrong wrapping bacon around anything, I say. I noticed that Montreal is fairly diverse, but I think I heard more English than French being spoken among the pedestrians.

Our one sightseeing stop for the evening was the famous Notre Dame Basilica. We navigated through several construction zone detours (walking by many racks full of bikes for the public to use) and finally came upon the giant stone cathedral. Unfortunately, it was closed and they did not have the evening light show "Let there be Light" on Mondays, but it was still quite impressive and neat to walk around. Nearby was a building that looked to be an exact replica of the courthouse in Boulder, CO except four times the size. We headed for the waterfront, enjoying the warm evening, mostly avoiding getting bitten by mosquitoes, and watching the moon rise over the buildings. We found a great European-looking winding pedestrian street, the restaurants still going strong after 10pm. After a blueberry-and-chocolate ice cream along the cobblestone path, we came upon Rue Artist with caricaturists galore and slowly made our way back to Saint Catherine Street. We walked through the cute pedestrian area of Chinatown (amused by the mix of Chinese and French on signs) and had finally reached the street only to find ourselves suddenly within the raging several-block party of the International Jazz Festival. We wandered a bit, but had trouble moving in the direction we wanted, so we tried to find a way around so we could get back to our hotel. We ended up leaving and re-entering the festival ropes about three times, and then found ourselves in the back of the audience in front of the main stage. I was wondering who would be headlining the Jazz Festival, so I listened to the song playing. No joke, it was "Love Shack." And furthermore, no joke, it was the honest-to-goodness B-52s up there on stage playing it! We were able to finally leave the festival at that point, but hung out just outside the exit ropes and grooved to the Rock Lobster finale, pondering both why the B-52s were headlining a Jazz Festival and if the people in the adjacent fifteen-storey Hyatt were enjoying the blaring concert outside their windows at nearly 11pm on a weeknight. At the end of the show, there were fireworks! We only saw the reflection in the windows of the Hyatt, but still, a cool way to finish off our July 4th in Canada.

St. Catherine Street is eager to please. On our walk back from the festival, we saw a talented solo violinist playing in front of the startling St. James Cathedral (startling because we were within an otherwise modern commercialopolis). The piece he was playing sounded to me like a vaguely-familiar classical number when my mom pointed out it was actually "Mother Russia" by the band "Renaissance" which prompted us to stop and listen until the end of the song. Afterward, as we walked along the fairly crowded streets, we were a little startled to see that, among the Old Navy, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Tim Hortons (Canada's premier doughnut chain), were very brightly advertised places to catch a Strip Tease. I couldn't help but notice that all the places offering nude dancing only had English signage...

After an early wake-up call from the taxi driver (double checking our 6:30am ride in heavily accented English; luckily we were already awake), we headed to the airport. We had a $30 breakfast at "The Second Cup" coffee stand (which had a great pastry selection and was open early, so we didn't complain) and boarded the plane to Newfoundland. During the flight, I enjoyed some travel shows and Halifax stand-up comedy on the pretty awesome entertainment system on Air Canada. (I'd gotten used to TV-free Southwest.) We arrived in St. John's cute little airport (no more French) a couple hours later, picked up our bright red rental car and turned onto the easternmost portion of the Trans-Canadian Highway (TCH for short.) The time zone was one and a half hours ahead of Montreal. The skies were cloudy and drizzly. Not long after, we saw a gruesome accident ahead of us on the opposite side of the divided highway. Probably the first time I saw actual victims of an accident on the ground still being treated. We did not realize it at the time, but it was to be all we heard about on the news later. Apparently, we were fortunate to get past as traffic was closed and blocked for hours sometime afterward. The rest of the ride was uneventful, but beautiful. The green, hilly terrain, strangely stunted trees, and many interior lakes made it appear that we were in high altitude land at the treeline, even though we were barely above sea level. We were impressed how well kept up the divided (!) highway was for being so far out. The huge highway seemed to be overkill for little Newfoundland; even in the height of tourist season, there were not very many cars. As we entered Terra Nova National Park, a large sign declared "06 Moose-Vehicle Accidents this Year" but the only moose we saw during our trip was a fake one cleverly propped up on the grass surrounding the highway.

We arrived at the Clode Sound Motel, which was for all practical purposes within the National Park, a good halfway stopping point, and the only such place to stay for miles. After checking in (and noticing the Columbine flowers near the doorway - wow), we drove down to the shores of the Sound to check out the small community of Charlottetown. We stopped at the picnic bench overlook and listened to the waves lapping up on the shore (making a Clode Sound?) The view was pretty, but there were a fair bit of biting bugs about so we got back in the car and drove to the end of the road, which ended on the trail. However, due to hurricane damage last year (which we learned about later), the Platters Beach trail was closed. I guess it's a Closed Sound. (Ba-dum tish.) Back at the motel for dinner, we enjoyed a Pan-fried Cod (as well as sampling Cod au Gratin), the local specialty, tried some Newfoundland beers, and for dessert had Partridge Berry Crumble, made with local "partridge berries" which are tasty and a bit tart, like a cranberry. All very delicious.

At the centre, we checked out the cool maps, pet the fish, and learned about the iceberg migration from Greenland and why we might be a bit too early to see one this year. The girl behind the desk was young but friendly and knew her stuff! (And grew up in Labrador. Now that's way up there.) She told us about the hurricane damage and showed us which trails got hit the hardest. We took a hike on the nearby Coastal Trail (one of the few still open). The evergreen and deciduous trees on the hillside were reminiscent of walking along a lake and whole patches of this pretty white flower were along the trail.

A perfect day for a ferry ride. (A rare thing around these parts, I imagine.) After we parked in line, we had to ask around to discover where we paid - it turned out we do not pay until our way back from Fogo. The ferry was running late. We chatted with a local who told us that the ferry had started running late more often when they started accepting debit cards. She timed a cash vs. card transaction and the card took about 20-30 extra seconds which, for 70 cars, can add up. Once the boat arrived however, it was efficiently unloaded and loaded. (And the ferry had a nicer bathroom than the ferry dock did.)

The Ferry arrived at Stag Harbor and we started the 20 minute drive up to Fogo proper. The hilly, green landscape is a lot like the mainland with its inland lakes and stunted trees, but has a different feel: a sense of isolation combined with a sense of community. People are here because they want to be. And to be in Fogo is to be hardy indeed, especially through the long winters, with short days and the ferry slugging through the icy water. There are no traffic lights on Fogo Island because there are no intersections. There are no chain stores, not even a Tim Hortons, and the number of restaurants can be counted on your fingers. The whimsical names on the above map represent clusters of wooden houses built almost randomly into the hillside surrounding various coves and roads connecting them almost as an afterthought. Indeed, Fogo's heyday was in the 19th and early 20th century and surprisingly little has changed visually since then except perhaps the models of car parked beside the houses. For decades, one made a very successful living in Fogo fishing cod, but now (due to restrictions on cod because of over-fishing), Fogo Islanders depend more on the crab and shrimp (the fish smell only noticeable right at the fishery). Still, the restrictions do not stop one from getting a nice plate of pan-fried cod; it just might not be as fresh as it could have been in years past.

We checked into Peg's, one of the B&Bs on the island. (You can also count the number of places to stay here on your fingers, but they keep busy enough - Peg's was booked for most of July.) I set up the air mattress while the folks admired the closet-converted-into-a-bathroom, surprised at how well it worked. Though, like Clode Sound, the water in the toilet was yellow-tinted (as if someone had peed in it.) We learned later that it is the color of the water and so we shouldn't necessarily drink the tap water. Oops, didn't know that in Clode Sound! Anyway, we met a member of the "Peg's" family and a local celebrity - Gerald Freake - building a deck out in front. My brother found us up in our room (!) (or maybe not so "!" as it is a small town and we have an apparently obvious rent-a-car, our Dodge Avenger.) After some greetings, we drove up Joe Batt's Arm (heh) to eat at Nicole's Cafe, which is probably the fanciest - and most expensive - restaurant on Fogo. I ordered iced tea, but they did not have any, instead I got offered an absolutely delicious berry punch, with actual partridge berries in it. We got one of the last "Jigs Dinners" left. I'm still not clear as to what exactly a "Jigs Dinner" is... never mind, I know now. Check out the Wiki entry. It's a Newfoundland and Labrador thing. It looked pretty much like the picture. We also ordered scallops, pork slices with jam, and beef with pasta. We also had salted dried capelins (a small fish like an anchovy) as an appetizer. The waitress assured us that the heads were clean and perfectly suitable to eat shortly before admitting that she would certainly never eat one. We all had a bite. Very salty. We didn't eat the heads. Everything else tasted fantastic. For dessert we had, what else, partridgeberry tart with partridgeberry ice cream on top as well as a "doughboy" made with local wild blueberries.

After dinner, we hiked up to a nearby overlook to watch a cloudy sunset, trying to avoid the bugs in the marshy part of the path, and pretending that the islands in the distance were actually whales.

Shortly after our first breakfast, which was some eggs at Peg's cooked to order with toast and a selection of jams (as well as Agave Nectar all the way from Lyons, CO, fifteen minutes from our house!), we picked up Jack and went to a second breakfast at the Island Bake House and had some eclairs to die for. After all that eating, we had to work it off, so we decided to go for one of the many fantastic hikes here. We were very lucky with the weather, as it was sunny with a cool breeze. Couldn't have asked for better conditions to tackle Brimstone Head that morning. In Portuguese, "Fogo" means "fire", so maybe that might explain why there are two churches in this town but only one bar? Anyway, Brimstone Head, besides being a beautiful hike (with an ample supply of calorie-burning stairs), is also apparently one of the four corners of the earth. We watched our step.

We stopped at BJs convenience store for refreshments and found birch-beer-flavored Crush! Amazingly, as good as, if not better than, Pennsylvania Dutch. Then we drove up the road and, on my brother's suggestion, stopped by a soon-to-be-museum of Fogo life 100 years ago called "Experience Fogo". We had the great timing to get a tour from the man doing most of the work on it, who also used to be the mayor of Fogo before all the communities combined. He showed us around the little houses set up to be workshops for fishing, carpentry, etc (it will be a hands-on museum), and explained how most of the tools on display were actual tools used in that time and that most of his props were found in locals' sheds around town. He then took us across the road to a restored stage. A "stage" is a one-room wooden house built on stilts above the water, just out from the bank, and used as a convenient reception area for massive amounts of cod and other fish. It is where the cod were cleaned, gutted, salted, and dried. Our impromptu tour guide gave us an excellent explanation of how each stage (pun alert) worked. You can see stages, many defunct, all over Fogo island and, by tradition, they are almost always painted red.

All but one of the studios were empty when we visited. Although visitors cannot go inside the studios, I have to wonder if having tourists isn't awfully distracting for the artists, especially since the studios themselves are built to be away from the hustle and bustle (so to speak) of the surroundings. I'm not sure if it is related, but a large hotel is under construction. Between the art studios and the huge hotel, looks like Fogo might become quite a Destination in the near future.

After we checked out the studios, we drove to the end of the road and took a tour of Tilting. The community of Tilting on Fogo Island is probably the most historical and offers a lot to see. You can get a map that lists about fifteen places of interest to visit - including a very nice beach - so if you are lucky and get awesome weather like we did (which you probably won't), check them out. Even if it is rainy, take a peek anyway; many are indoors. There are various old houses and business restored to their original state here, as well as the neat feeling of being At the End of the Road. It is pretty much impossible to get lost in Fogo Island, though we did spend an inordinate amount of time searching out the Old Post Office and the Statue of Mary, which are hidden amongst the hills. We checked out the beach as well, at the recommendation of the nice locals, and it was pretty busy. Needless to say, we did not expect to get so much sun in Fogo. It did not occur to us to bring sunscreen, but we were all quite red skinned at the end of the day and picked up a tube of sunscreen at the Tilting market before returning to Fogo proper.

Friday dawned quite cool and cloudy, so we ditched our boating plans and drove up to the Island Bake Shop (we love this place.) While eating our eclairs and other goodies, a small film crew entered the restaurant. They were doing a documentary, filming in the bakery, and interviewing another local celebrity - a humble painter named Winston whose art can be seen all over Fogo Island. It's neat to keep running into people we've heard of; my brother had already met many of them, as well as some of the Shorefast artists.

The weather eased up a bit after our second breakfast (early lunch, perhaps) so we drove the fifteen minutes back to Fogo and did a long hike on one of the most gorgeous trails I have ever been on. I don't think it has a name, but most people call it the Lion's Den. Our hostess at the bed and breakfast told us she hikes it every day which, once we had done it, we were impressed with. We turned off the main thoroughfare and drove up a steep one-lane road until it ended at a communications center and trailhead, this time remembering our sunscreen. The day warmed up as we walked slowly around the loop, stopping at most of the lookouts, and we rarely needed our raincoats.

The trail went on low lands, where you walked on wooden pathways over marshy ground, all the way up to 360-degree-view overlooks, back down to the ocean's edge, and back up around the startlingly blue inland lakes. My Colorado hiking skills have drilled in me the concept of never walking on the wild tundra because the plants and flowers that survive there are fragile and take a long time to grow. The ground here looks so startlingly similar to tundra that I was being automatically, but unnecessarily careful. The lush greenery covering much of Fogo Island actually gives a little bit when you walk on it, the soil is so thick with moisture (very different than the rocky tundra) and wooden walkways are necessary over many of the swamplike parts.

We were pretty hungry after our three-plus hour trek counterclockwise around the Lion's Den loop (granted, we stopped a lot and did most of the lookout mini-trails, many of which involved a great deal of stairs) so we stopped at Fogo's grocery store for some bologna, cheese, and rolls to lunch with in the car on our way back to Joe Batt's Arm to visit Growlers. Growlers does one thing: ice cream. You may think that Growlers is sort of a strange name for an ice cream shop until you read that, in these parts, a very tiny iceberg is called a "growler." Blueberry and partridge berry ice cream were among the options so, of course, we sampled. (Notably, this is where Nicole's gets its ice cream; both advertise the other.) We sat outside in the sunshine in front of the shop to enjoy our scoops. Afterward, we headed back to Peg's and played some of our family card game - pinochle - while waiting for the "This and That Store" to re-open after their dinner hiatus. The pinochle game was quite close (but me and dad won) and shortly later, we bought some souvenirs at the This and That Store and chatted with the friendly shopkeeper.

After visiting Bridge Studio in little Deep Bay (which inexplicably has a cemetery in the middle of the island), we went to the convenience store / burger joint in Seldom called Vanessa's for dinner. Although the Ozzie's Burger was decent enough, it came with too many potato "wedgies." Not sure how to describe a wedgie... it's sort of like a deep fried potato wedge, except with a breading (?) and served with gravy. With the exception of Chester's, which we only missed because of time constraints, we've been to every eatery in Fogo I think. At any rate, although we did not spend much time in Seldom, it seemed to be the more industrial part of the island. More jobs; less historical landmarks. Also, we determined that the town called "Seldom" is the same as "Seldom Come By" but not the same as "Little Seldom." I love the names of communities here.

The weather turned cold, windy, foggy and rainy. Time to leave! No Island Bake Shop today, just our continental breakfast at Peg's before heading down. We got on the ferry and were soon back on the mainland. We drove back through Terra Nova, stopping for lunch at the Starfish Eatery, which had, according to my mom, excellent pea soup. Then we were back on the road, heading south on the TCH through the rain (passing a sign, I'm not making this up, for the "Dildo Trading Post" in the unfortunately-named town of Dildo, Newfoundland. Personally, I'd rather live in "Goobies" or "Heart's Content.")

As we reached St. John's and our hotel (despite my directions, which were completely wrong as I'd been looking at a map of Saint John) the rain stopped. The weather gods were good to us this trip. The clouds were flying by overhead, but no rain was in evidence, as we searched for parking on the street and walked to our hotel.

The fellow who checked us into our hotel was exceedingly friendly and, when my mom mentioned she wouldn't mind a drink, he took us a couple blocks up to George Street. George Street is about two or three blocks long (if you can call anything in this lack-of-a-grid city a "block") and is filled entirely with pubs. I mean, every single building you pass - whether on the left or on the right - is a bar. Never seen another street quite like this. So we went into Kelly's Pub. Our host proceeded to have a Bud Light (really?), my folks finally got the chance to try to local beer "Quidi Vidi" which no other place had had yet, and the waitress (when I told her I wanted a "girly drink") offered me a pub specialty: "The Rubinator" which involved vodka, peach schnapps and a variety of juices. So we got nice and toasty before eating dinner.

We met an "Iceberg Quest" solicitor on a street corner near our hotel (we were thinking about doing that tour anyway, so got all the info) and chatted with him for a while. He grew up in Newfoundland so said he was "used to the wind." Dinner was a tasty lobster and halibut at Velma's Place. Though the waitress had to ask how to make a Whiskey Sour, even though it was listed as one of the six specialty drinks on the menu. (Not that we were spending the whole evening drinking or anything...)

After a decadent bakery breakfast (we are so predictable) we got our Iceberg Quest tickets which had a tear-off coupon for "2 for 1 Coors Light" on it, um yay?, and not long after, headed onto to the boat with a bunch of other tourists. As our 1:00 tour pulled out, we got gorgeous view of the harbor and the hills of St. John's rising up beyond, full of colorful row houses. Beautiful. Then we went through the narrow strait and out into the open ocean, heading toward "Cape Spear", the easternmost point of North America.

The changed course at one point and suddenly, the waters around us were full of dolphins, swimming around and under the boat, saying hello. That was pretty awesome. Then we turned again and the boat got very bumpy. We were glad at this point that we wore our raincoats. Lots of cold, salty water splashed on us as we went UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN the waves. The experience was like an amusement park ride - both scary and nauseating. My folks as well as the guys across from us laughing and balancing their beer cups were having a great time which calmed me, who was staring hard at the horizon to keep from getting ill. My dad said it was the bumpiest boat ride he'd ever been on and my mom later helped some folk who were getting sea sick.

Then we saw a whale tail! My mom got a picture of the tail (below) and we saw lots of whale midriff as he swam up to the surface, spraying water out his blowhole. I believe it was my first time seeing a whale out in the wild, so that was very exciting. The captain took a smoother route back for which I was infinitely grateful for.

I grew up as a Roman Catholic, so a lot of the decoration inside (like the stained glass windows, detailed Stations of the Cross, and crucifixes) were no surprise. However, right in front of the altar was something I had never seen in a church before. It is called "The Dead Christ". Here is a photo and, below it, an explanation I found on a plaque outside the basilica.

We arrived at the basilica later than the stated hours, but the very large front doors were open. We were pretty much the only people inside as we slowly took in the quiet, impressive place. The detail was phenomenal. (And the rows of pews had numbers.) It is absolutely amazing to me to think of the work that must have gone into bringing all the building materials to this relatively remote location in 1855 (A lot of the stone and such was brought in from the UK then had to be painstakingly dragged to the top of the hill.)

One thing that made me chuckle was the hand sanitizer next to the holy water. They didn't have that when I was a kid! There was also a graphic crucifix hanging out on the back wall. The graphicness did not surprise me but the location seemed strange, as if they had an extra one and had to put it up somewhere.